Does anyone have a count on the number of posts about balance since this started?

Almost 3000 posts in the official feedback threads on CoH2.org alone. And then there was all the random threads, Reddit and the official Relic forums, as well as personal conversations and watching streams and casts and replays. On top of our own internal discussions. But I like spending my spare time this way personally.

I'm not a 1v1 player, but I do have some experience in helping test and adjust maps and I've seen quite a few casts and streams on the map, so I'll just post some things that I found while I had a look around. Feel free to ignore them in favor of feedback of people who have actually played on the map.

I believe this map is meant to somewhat recreate Crossroads. What makes Crossroads such a good map I think, is 1) how open it is and 2) how easy it is to switch sides (fluent gameplay). I'll aim my feedback at making the map less "laney" in the middle and open it up more for infantry and light vehicles.

A. Add a hole in the wall at (1) for infantry and make the avenue at (2) and (3) slightly wider so light vehicles don't get stuck there as easily.

B. Add some green cover to help fight the big garrisons (similar to the big garrison on Crossroads) somewhere at (4) and (5). Maybe remove that inner corner high wall (the one just west of the garrison) or a portion of it at (4) and replace it with a low wall. The same could be done for that corner in the wall at (5).

C. Add holes in the walls somewhere at (6) and at (7) so infantry (and light vehicles for (6)) can move around the map easier.

D. I think the southern industrial part is too close to the center, which makes the western middle part of the map a bit too tight to move vehicles around in. Since the most southern part of the map isn't really used, I would propose to move the entire garrison section (8) like 10-15 range south so that the middle area (9) becomes bigger and better mirrors the north-eastern middle part of the map.

E. I think that the train platforms in the middle of the map are a bit too big of tank "no-go" area, which hinders armored gameplay. I'd suggest to remove part of the platforms at (10) and (11) to help make tank pathing more fluent.

F. Reduce the amount of "free" territory points for both sides in order to make map control slightly more important and potentially slow down teching. I would suggest to create Crossroads-like "heavy" cut-offs at (12) and (13), and move the strategic points at (14) and (15) slightly forward so they are easier to capture (for the enemy). Alternatively this could also or instead be done to the horizontal cut-offs.

Is that the official stance going forward? If it's doctrinal it needs to be more effecient than alternatives? Or is the official stance that Soviet abilities need to be over priced or underpowered compared to others?

My personal stance is that Infiltration Grenades having to be an attractive choice because they take up an entire commander ability slot on their own is one thing to consider when looking at their price. Like I stated above. I did not draw any conclusions about their new price being right or wrong.

One other thing to consider is that I would rather underadjust something when multiple things are being changed at once, to avoid potentially overbuffing or overnerfing that something, because the exact outcome of other changes is usually not entirely clear. The Command Panther change was a huge nerf for the commander, it wasn't clear what it would do to the popularity of the commander, so I (/we) did not want to throw in big nerfs to Infiltration Grenades and the Artillery Flares at the same time to avoid potentially signing a death sentence for the commander. If it becomes clear in the coming weeks/months that the commander is still very good / popular we can always consider further nerfs. Balancing isn't done overnight.

jager armor comes with a very good doc, jt not as much (sturm officer is bad, and break through is situational, of map is not guaranteed to kill arty like stuka bomb, spotting scopes make ele a real heavy TD

The Sturm Offizier is a (very) good unit now imo with a lot of versatility (with vet it has good combat power, and the abilities and smoke grenade are really useful in support of your Pfussies) and it will get shared veterancy in an upcoming bugfix patch. Panzerfusiliers are really great infantry for their new cost and they can support the Jagdtiger with flares for sight. The offmap is pretty damn devastating to static defenses (it's not meant to counter howitzers) or is at least guaranteed to force the enemy to reposition or avoid a big area entirely. The new Jagdtiger is much more responsive and much easier to play with and more versatile.

In my opinion Breakthrough is now easily a top tier commander for team games, able to compete with Jeager Armor. It should hopefully finally allow Ostheer to pick other commanders and spice up the Axis meta.

That’s a laughable bargain, 15 fuel above a panther and you get mark vehicle and insane vet bonus auras.

The trade off is that it doesn't really get any good combat veterancy bonuses for itself, so it's arguably worse than a regular Panther unless there's a huge army for it to support (with its aura) because it doesn't really scale. If it wasn't for its 50 sight range I'd even argue it could be around 185 fuel like a regular Panther.